Pinterest is one of the biggest social media platforms out there. It is a picture-driven social media platform and when people share pictures they can actually drive quite a bit of traffic to the websites these pictures linked to.

Pictures here are called pins and when people create especially-themed collections of pins these can be powerful traffic drivers. If you’re looking for a specific type of traffic, Pinterest can deliver quite a bit of traffic. Best of all it has a fast-growing demographic. It leans mostly towards women.

What’s interesting is this particular social medial platform has a tremendous number of people who are ready, willing and able to buy catalogue-friendly products. By catalogue-friendly products I mean products that you would often see in a catalogue represented by pictures. Those glossy pictures that you see in a typical mail-order catalogue or online site make for perfect Pinterest pins.

This is why a lot of marketers have been making solid money through Pinterest. They only focus on key verticals that have a proven demand on this social media platform for them to earn a reliable income.

While it’s easy to conclude that Pinterest is only a marketing platform for marketers looking to reach women, this is a short-sighted view. You shouldn’t dismiss Pinterest primarily as a female-centered marketing platform. If anything, any kind of product or service that lends itself well to being promoted through pictures can be marketed on Pinterest. Viewed from this perspective, it’s easy to see how Pinterest can put a lot of money on your personal table.

Why?

There are tons of products and services out there that are graphics-oriented. These products and services tend to sell well if you promote them with a chart, an infographic, diagram or a set of pictures. There’s a tremendous amount of marketing potential on Pinterest. The best part is that it’s easy to segregate potential Pinterest buyers. Pinterest has features that allow you to easily do this.

What Pinterest marketers normally do

If you’re interested in making money off Pinterest traffic, you only need to pay attention to what existing Pinterest marketers do. First, they look for pin boards that are directly targeted to the niche of whatever product or services they are promoting. For example, if you are going to be promoting dog-training services you only need to go to Pinterest and do searches for pin boards that involve this particular niche. Keep in mind that there are many niches that are so esoteric or so specific that there is no specific Pinterest pin board targeting that niche. Don’t be disappointed if this is the case.

The good news is that, for the most part, all niches have related sub-niches that can be found on Pinterest. If you run a search on Pinterest for your specific sub-niche and can’t find it, you might want to go up the next level of categorization for your sub-niche and see if that is listed on Pinterest. Chances are very high that it is. Once you found pin boards that cater to your direct sub-niche or to a related niche, it’s easy to find people interested in whatever you’re pushing. Why? You only need to look at the followers of these pin boards and follow them.

Pinterest can kind of works the same way as Twitter. When you follow accounts a certain percentage of them will follow you back. This is where things get a little tricky. You don’t want random followers; you don’t want people who just follow you out of obligation. You want people who are actually interested in whatever it is that you are promoting.

The best way to filter people who follow you is to simply put together the proper Pinterest profile. What I mean by this is that your profile cover, your pictures as well as the pins that you collect all have to directly be related to the niche of the products and services that you are promoting. I hope you’re still following me. I hope you are getting the importance of niche-specificity.

Everything that you do on Pinterest communicates your brand. If your brand is confusing or if it’s very hard to figure out the specific niche you’re marketing to, chances are the people who end up following you on Pinterest will be completely clueless. Chances are these people won’t be interested in your pins. It’s really important to make sure that you communicate very clearly to people who maybe thinking of following you what it is that they should expect from you. In other words, they should be clued in as to the kind of content you would be dishing out. This way they can readily assume that if they follow you they would get pins that are very specific regarding a particular niche.

It’s your picture quality, stupid

It’s really important to understand that Pinterest is built around pins. Pins as I’ve mentioned earlier are pictures that are linked to website content. It’s really important to wrap your mind around this because this should clue you in to the importance of picture quality.

If you’re going to be making pins or pictures that are very fuzzy or are very confusing it’s very easy to turn off your followers. Eventually they’ll ask themselves, “Why am I following this person? I’m obviously not getting the kind of value I’m looking for” So it’s really important to pay special attention to the quality of your pins.

I know you’re maybe thinking that pin quality is all about clarity. Well, that’s just one part. Picture quality and technical qualities are important, but picture selection is equally if not more important. In other words, if somebody is following you for dog training you better make sure that all the pins that you produce are all about dog training.

We’re talking about direct correlation. We’re talking about direct relevance. The more specific your pins are, the higher the probability that people will click through your shares and do what you want them to do. It’s all about relevance.

Remember the KLT process

You have to remember that for people to buy from you they must first trust you. However, for them to trust they must first feel that they like whatever it is that you’re doing. For them to get to that point, in turn, they must first feel that you know enough about what you’re talking about.

This seems like a complicated process, but you can work with your Pinterest pins in such a way that you walk people through the KLT process. You get them to click on a pin and you then use the blog post or website to pull them in to other areas of the KLT process. This way you develop a relationship with them.

At the very least, try to get them to sign up for your mailing list so your updates can walk them through the KLT process. Don’t expect that your visitors will convert the first time they visit your website. It rarely happens that way.

In reviewing the history of Pinterest, you are sure to stumble across the names, Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp. In November of 2009, these individuals initiated the build of Pinterest. During the Thanksgiving holidays, Ben Silbermann’s wife came up with the name “Pinterest”.

During the months of January and February 2010, these individuals sent out invitations to their friends to sign up for the site. Initially, Ben recalls, the “numbers were terrible”; however, since its official launch in March of 2010, Pinterest now has approximately 73 million users, worldwide. The history of Pinterest is an intriguing collection of ideas, challenges, and successes.

What is Pinterest?

In order to truly understand and appreciate the value of Pinterest, you must first learn about the website. Basically, it is a type of visual-based bookmarking tool that aids internet users in discovering and saving a wide assortment of creative ideas. Many individuals consider Pinterest to be a social media platform where internet users may socialize and share their ideas with one another.

The purpose and intent behind Pinterest is to assist internet users in discovering things – new things, interesting things, all sorts of things –and inspire those people to pursue, do, and engage in those things in their day-to-day lives. The individuals behind the development of Pinterest are striving to construct the very first and the absolute largest discovery search engine within the world.

Basic Facts

If you have an interest in the history of Pinterest, it is essential that you learn a few basic facts about the site. Currently, Pinterest has over 500 employees. The headquarters is located in San Francisco, California. The site has physical offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta within the United States. There are also physical offices in other areas of the world – Sao Paulo, London, Tokyo, Paris, and Berlin.

Pinterest is found on several different platforms. Currently, those platforms include iOS, the World Wide Web, and Android. The site is now available in over 30 different languages, worldwide. While Pinterest originated as a place for personal “pinning” and sharing, many businesses are starting to take advantage of the marketing power of the site. If you have a business and are currently creating an online marketing plan, continue reading on how this amazingly powerful site may help you achieve massive levels of success on the World Wide Web.

Pins and Boards

Pinterest is a specially-designed social sharing platform that allows internet users to pin a variety of images directly from existing websites and/or repin the pins that are currently in existence. The users on the platform add the images that they choose to special boards that are typically organized on a specific theme. Examples of themes include, but, are not at all limited to, “Holidays”, “Recipes”, “Shopping”, and “Parenting”. Each of the pins placed within a certain board act as a visual-based link back to the website in which it originated. When an internet user stumbles across that pin and discover that they are interested in it, they may click it to visit the original website to explore more content that will be appealing to them. Pins may link back to a blog, a recipe database, a traditional website, or to a retailer’s site.

Optimize Your Business for Success

Based on data derived from Alexa Internet Inc., Pinterest is the 13th most visited of all websites within the United States. Numerous studies and hours of research have established that the internet users that actively use Pinterest hold a higher level of value to online businesses than users that actively engage on other types of social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.

It has been determined that internet users on Pinterest are more likely to actively engage in brands, search for products and/or services that they want and/or require, and buy more once they click on a pin to go back to the originating business website.

Businesses are consistently optimizing their business for success by using Pinterest to create brand recognition, build trust among consumers, and introduce new products. The businesses currently receiving the highest level of success on the platform include Nordstrom Inc., L.L Bean Inc., and Bourbon & Boots Inc., according to the statistics surrounding the history of Pinterest.

Signing Up

If you are ready to get your business on Pinterest, it is time to start the sign up process. It is really very simple. Essentially, there are only three steps involved in this task. They are as follows:

1. First, you will need to visit Pinterest for Business and create an account. By taking this step, internet users will be able to discover your business on the platform.

2. The second step to setting up a business account is to simply enter in the website that you are attempting to promote and to confirm that site. This allows you immediate access to the analytics surrounding your website and will allow you to add your logo to absolutely any pin on Pinterest that originates from your website.

3. Finally, you will need to add the ever-popular “Pin It” button onto your website and/or blog. This will allow other internet users and Pinterest members to share the images and information from your website.

Steps to Success

In reviewing the history of Pinterest, you will discover many common steps that were taken among businesses that have experienced the highest level of success. By taking these steps, your business is sure to experience the same level of success:

1. The first step to using Pinterest to maximize the success of your business is to ensure that you pin images that display the highest level of quality. In order to make the most of your marketing efforts on the platform, it is imperative to create highly compelling images. This platform is highly visual and your business must keep that in mind in using it for marketing purposes.

2. You must keep in mind that internet users access Pinterest on standard computers, laptop computers, AND mobile devices. The images that you elect to pin should be sized appropriately so that they not only stand out on all devices, but, they receive more attention. The ideal size, to date, is 736 pixels by a size of 1128 pixels.

3. In order to make your pins more visible and shareable on Pinterest, you should display your products with a variety of backgrounds. It is also important to show the products being used from a distance and up close and personal. These types of pins have a standard repin rate of 2.44 compared to the overall repin rate of images that lack these qualities of 0.45.

4. Based on statistics, 20% of all pins come from an originating website and the other 80% are already on the Pinterest network. In order to ensure that all of your products are listed, you should ensure that you focus your efforts on getting images of absolutely every single product that you specialize.

5. According to the history of Pinterest, businesses that post on a regular basis perform optimally compared to businesses that do not post very often. You should aim to pin anywhere from 25-40 pins of your products daily and space the pins out.

6. Your business should keep tabs on the latest trends and create boards, accordingly. Your pins should be more than just about your products and/or services. You should create your account to surround a common theme on a larger scale and break down that theme by individually-created boards.

7. You should ensure that your Pinterest account is considered to be engaging and accessible. You should create pinning contests, create partnerships with bloggers that may curate content for you, and similar activities.

Conclusion

In reviewing the history of Pinterest, you will discover a unique story and many successes. This is especially true among businesses. Brands that understand the basic nature and the unlimited possibilities associated with Pinterest are considered to be in the absolute best position to use the platform for social sharing marketing purposes.

Simply create a business account, optimize the content on your account to fit the overall nature of the social sharing platform, and pay special attention to how other brands use Pinterest to master the platform, and your business has the potential to achieve higher levels of success than you ever thought possible.

By combining the history of Pinterest to the current marketing trends of today, your business has the capability of reaching new heights!

What is LinkedIn ?

Social networking is the way of the future and it is not always recreational in nature. The world of business and how professionals interact with one another has dramatically changed. With the arrival of LinkedIn, social networking was taken to a whole new level for professionals in all fields. With a rich history, this is a social networking platform, which has grown leaps and bounds over the years since its inception.

Let’s take a glance at the history of LinkedIn.com and the value it holds for those who run online businesses.

History

Founded in 2002, this was the first professional networking site released onto the market to help professionals interact and close the gap created by distance. The world was already becoming ‘tech-savvy’ with the introduction of e-mails and texting, but this was a whole new level.

Professional networking was taken to a different stratosphere by the creators of this platform.

Who were the creators behind LinkedIn?

Reid Hoffman was the key founder of the social networking platform along with team members from PayPal and SocialNet.com. These were individuals with years of experience in creating such platforms and knew how to build it properly from the ground up. This ensured there were minimal hurdles along the way.

The initial launch was situated in California as with most social networking sites. Investments for the venture came from the likes of Bain Capital Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, European Founders Fund, and Greylock.

The initial valuation for the company came in at $1 Billion (USD) by those investing into the project. It was regarded as a winner immediately in the eyes of these investors and they put in a significant amount of money. The initial run came in at $53 Million (USD) from Sequoia Capital.

The site has now grown since it started in 2002 with offices all around the world in places such as New York, London, Washington, Dublin, and many others. The growth continues to come as the company has remained profitable since 2006. A mere four years after launching, it started earning money and turning a profit.

There are now over 7,600 employees working for LinkdIn all around the world in their various offices. The list of offices continue to grow as the demand for this professional networking site continues to grow as it has become the ‘go to’ option for all professionals.

LinkedIn Stats

There are numerous stats in relation to LinkedIn, which paint a better image of how this social networking platform has grown over time. There are over 364 million users on the platform and they come from over 200 different countries around the world.

There is significant growth in traffic coming onto the platform year over year. During the earlier part of the 2010s, there was a 63% growth in traffic coming into LinkedIn. This meant 33.9 million users came online to visit this platform and most of them signed in as well to create accounts. It is important to note these are unique visitors.

How To Sign Up (LinkedIn Login)

The next question to inquire about is, “How does one sign up?” and this is a good question to ask. It is a simple process for those who are interested and want to sign up as soon as possible to start speaking with those in their industry. Simply type in the website (www.linkedin.com) and fill in the form, which pops up on the home page.

This will lead the prospective user through a series of questions which have to be answered to set up the profile. The rest will be done based on your contacts on other platforms to make it easier for you.

Another question asked is “Who should sign up?” for those who are unaware of what this platform might have to offer them. LinkedIn is great for those who are looking to create new contacts and get a better grip of their industry. It is essential to set up a profile in order to set up a footprint in your niche. It can lead to new job opportunities popping up or finding potential private clients for those who run online businesses. The opportunities are endless.

Value For Online Business Owners

Online business owners have a lot to benefit from when it comes to LinkedIn. This is a social networking platform built to help online business owners locate new clients and develop connections in their niche.

Want to find a new supplier for your online business? Why not add them on your account and develop a relationship through LinkedIn instead of shooting in the dark by cold calling?

It is easier and simply more logical to go through this approach to land clients and develop new relationships in the industry. Online business owners want to keep it ‘online’, so this is a perfect solution for them.

Many people do not realize this, but it is quite possible for a business to become very successful using LinkedIn. While you may have thought that the only use for the site was talking to prospective employers and employees, many people are using it as a marketing tool. If you are interested in following their lead, you can begin by paying close attention to the following LinkedIn marketing tips.

Make Use Of Sponsored Updates

The best way to let the world know how your business is doing and offer pertinent news would be to purchase some sponsored updates. These updates are shown to the type of people you specify, which means that you will not have to worry about your information reaching people who are not likely to be interested. This is particularly useful if you are looking to reach people who are not currently in your network.

Complete Your Profile

There is nothing worse than a business owner trying to use LinkedIn marketing to appeal to a wider audience, yet their profile is not filled with information. Transparency is very important when you are trying to convince people to work with your business. If they have no idea who you are, there is no reason for them to run to patronize your business. Yes, it may take a while to fill in all of the sections, but it will increase your popularity tenfold.

Engage People During Discussions

There are many discussion groups on LinkedIn and they span multiple industries. Joining these discussions is a great way to get your name out there and let people know that you are an expert in your niche and you have something very useful to offer them. In order to do this, you will need to be very engaging when interacting with people. If you are not saying anything that helps set you apart from the crowd, no one will be convinced that they need anything from your business.

Connect With More People

It used to be quite common for people to decline invitations from people who were not closely connected to them. This is a huge mistake since adding more connections will help increase your visibility. Even if you don’t personally know the people who are sending you invitations, that does not mean that they will not prove useful to you in the future. While you should be more open about the people you are connecting with, you should still avoid those who you get a general bad feeling about.

Update Regularly

One thing you may not realize is that people who constantly view your profile get tired of looking at the same content. While things like education and jobs should not change frequently, you should change your picture now and then. There may be something in your new photo that compels someone to click who has never given you a second look before. LinkedIn is not something that you should discount when you are on the road to business success. Use these tips to help you get the most out of the site.

Pinterest is a fast, free and effective way to engage your audience and educate them about your brand. While it is a social network, few know that it can also be a very effective marketing tool. When people hear that, usually the first question is, how?

What is Pinterest and How Does it Work?

Quite simply Pinterest is a social network that allows people to visually share what interests them. You can easily share, curate and find new interests that you want to share (called pinning). Sounds easy and actually it is, the emphasis is on the visual, which doesn’t mean it can’t be used for marketing, just that it needs to be done in a low key manner.

Just like on the big one (Facebook) users can like, comment, share or post (termed PIN) pictures on their own boards. These can then be shared on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter (you can also send PINs via email or embed them on your website).

Proper Pinterest Posting (or Etiquette)

And while Pinterest does not shun marketers, neither do they endorse them, stating that one should avoid self promotion. That’s not saying, “No”, simply that one needs to think out of the box, and there is nothing wrong with doing that, anytime and anywhere.

Think shoes…

A picture of a shoe wouldn’t cut it would it? But take those same shoes, put them on an attractive person and have that person doing something exciting, and WOW, then you have something. Nike should certainly be credited for being among the first to brand that thought and they’ve done it well, both on Pinterest and worldwide.

For the sake of this article, we’ll assume you already have, or understand how to create a Pinterest account, if not then a simple internet search can easily teach you. Once your account is created then…

Use Pinterest Marketing To Build Your Following

Go ahead and post some interesting pictures (remembering to think outside the box), once you have some PINS, begin to share your PINS on your Facebook and Twitter. Don’t be overt, just post the ones you believe will be interesting to others and do so consistently. You’ll want to place a Pinterest follow button on your website, but you’ll also want to mention the fact you (or your business) is now on Pinterest on other social accounts. (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter).

As people begin to follow you, follow them back or follow others you believe would find your PINS interesting. It’s not rocket science, but here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing…

1. Feature Your Best Visual Content

2. Start a User Generated Pinboard (ask people on your other networks to share their pins)

3. Everyone loves a contest, so host one. Be sure to check the TOS on Pinterest so you don’t fall outside their guidelines

4. As mentioned earlier, add a Pin-It Button to Your Website

5. Learn about your customers by seeing their interests

6. Re-Pin what your followers are interested in

7. Become an expert at Pinterest curation

8. Make a video gallery. Since you’re not limited to images, find and PIN videos of interest

9. Use #hashtags (but don’t overuse them)

10. If you host any offline activities, PIN the pictures, people love it

11. Showcase your personality (it’s okay to have fun)

12. Drive Pinterest users back to your website, and then track the results

Pinterest marketing is a ripe and rich environment, use it consistently with thought and creativity and you’ll begin to find your traffic increasing with each PIN you make. We are confident these tips will get you off to a great start!